And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen. And he said to them: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. - Matthew 4: 18- 19.

Friday, June 25, 2010

I lead a very weird life. For fun, I like to see what Scripture looks like in the Message translations. It's funny to me compared to more widely-accepted translations.

For example.... Habakkuk 3:9-14

THE MESSAGE (part of vv 9-14)Ocean roared and reared huge waves. Sun and Moon stopped in their tracks. Your flashing arrows stopped them, your lightning-strike spears impaled them. Angry, you stomped through Earth. Furious, you crushed the godless nations. You were out to save your people, to save your specially chosen people. You beat the stuffing out of King Wicked, Stripped him naked from head to toe, Set his severed head on his own spear and blew away his army. Scattered they were to the four winds— and ended up food for the sharks!

VS.

NEW KING JAMES VERSION

The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered its voice, And lifted its hands on high. 11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation; At the light of Your arrows they went, At the shining of Your glittering spear. 12 You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled the nations in anger. 13 You went forth for the salvation of Your people, For salvation with Your Anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked, By laying bare from foundation to neck. Selah 14 You thrust through with his own arrows The head of his villages. They came out like a whirlwind to scatter me; Their rejoicing was like feasting on the poor in secret.

A couple weekends ago, our pastor brought this photo and its story to our attention. It is a Sudanese child who was on her way to a feeding trough with the rest of her village. She was so weak, she stopped to rest like this. For 20 minutes Kevin Carter, the photographer, waited for the vulture to spread its wings, but it didn't. He eventually snapped the photo and chased away the vulture. He did nothing to help the little toddler, which drew much criticism after the photo was released.

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida said this of Carter: "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Her fate was unknown, BUT, Carter was awarded the Pulitzer prize for Feature Photography two months after the picture was taken.

A year later, all that fame couldn't buy Carter peace. He was "haunted by vivid memories", according to his suicide note. He took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33. Carter had no hope that there was something better beyond the pain & suffering that he had seen as a photographer. He saw the worst in humanity, but he did not know the best humanity had to offer - JESUS.

Yet, Jesus must have revealed something to him AFTER he realized his lack of compassion on a starving child. The pain. The heartache. The regret. If only he could do it all over again. Maybe he did take the words to heart that he was nothing more than a predator, waiting for that next great photo. He had separated his heart from his work.

God's Word says, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." - Matt 25:40

The modern day church is to be the hands & feet for Christ.

Later in that same passage, God says, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'" (v45)

Living with that regret would haunt me too. It's a double-tragedy beyond Shakespearan proportions. Sad that we lost a photographer that could have turned his life towards Christ and become a great humanitarian too. And sad that world hunger still goes on like this every day around the world and people turn a blind eye to it.

I want to leave you with these final thoughts. Here's a quote I really like but don't know whom to give credit to:"When you see what Jesus saw, You will feel what Jesus felt."

Thursday, June 24, 2010

About 10 days ago, our neighbor, R, graduated and had her party. It was a lot of fun to attend because it involved a POOL!!! ha ha. (Oh! and corn hole)

I managed to escape being documented at the party (LOL), but I copied this photos of my guys on R's facebook page.

Andrew found his niche' with all the graduates. He was their... um... mascot. They swung him so hard into the pool that he first went over 10 ft airborne over the pool, almost flying back into cement on the other side and caused his Mama to scream at the thought of seeing her baby die.Those big boys didn't realize that Andrew is only about 60 lbs.

This was their alternative fun with their little buddy.

At the risk of embarassing Jack, I really wanted to show you this funny picture of him. It looks like he is walking on water. He really *is* like Jesus. LOL.

Ok, well that is my fun for today. Let's see if I can make it 3 blogs in a row tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Seems like spiders are popping up in the strangest places, every single day. I've killed a hand full of black widows in our garage and in my shed. YIKES!! A couple weeks ago, we came across these two love birds. I don't know which species they were, but they build their web right on a pair of goggles.

Upon closer inspection (imagine all 4 of us staring at this little web), we realized it was two spiders. Then, when I went to break the web, we found one of the spiders to be dead and the other to be quite alive.

My guess is that the female had killed her husband and was going to eat him for nutrition to grow babies in her huge abdomen.

Ugghhhh, I really don't like spiders. I'm not afraid of them, per se, but there are just way too many of them around here for my liking. Last year about this time, I was bitten on my chin by something most likely in the spider family. My skin melted away and I was left with a nice scar (to this day). Life would be fine for me without them. (Was the politically incorrect?)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Part of raising up fishermen for Christ is attending and working VBS. I think I'm in my 9th year of being a part of this yearly tradition in many churches across this nation.

Simon Peter is too old for it and we don't have a youth version, so he has volunteered his energy to the recreational team. In short, he picks up cones, catches balls and places children in their right positions. He's a good man for the job because he is always so encouraging and he has tons of energy. He has a good sense of age-appropriateness and willingness to serve. He is one of my VBS heroes this year.

Andrew is the 4th grade class and enjoys every aspect of VBS, even though he at a much deeper level of understanding the Bible than others around him. For him, it is about the socialization. He likes to be friends with everybody, which can be very useful in God's kingdom. He has serious leadership skills and he's learning the ins & outs of relationships. I'm very proud of all that he is and will become. Two of his teachers came to me (separately) last night and said that he corrected the main teacher giving the Bible lesson. Basically, the teacher said that everyone goes into eternity and there is heaven waiting for them if they do their ABC's (Accept, Believe, Confess). Andrew skipped to the next level in Revelations and insisted there was a New Heaven and New Earth coming up. So true, young wise one........ but we had a life lesson on learning not to correct teachers and confusing the lessons for new children.

I have been working in the kitchen, handing out children's snacks and eating way too much VBS worker's food. It's a great job. ha ha. Tuesday night, I was in the nursery with two toddlers. While I enjoyed that to some degree, I certain was a clock-watcher those entire 2.5 hrs. It would be much easier if we could get out and sit in on some of the activities, but when I tried that, they saw their parents and the tears started again. I'm so thankful to whomever created Bubble wands. It stops tears almost instantly.

Next week, I hope to get back on the blogging trail and get back to summer relaxing.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

So, we decided to pull one plant, put it in a habitat, then put ALL the caterpillars in there together. I hope they create those chrysallis(s) soon and then we can see butterflies!!! I try to do one project a year like this from something in the garden. One year, we watched Giant Swallowtails emerge from their chrysallises. (crysalli?)

Is it me or do they look like I skewed them on sticks?? They've eaten off all the tops of my plants. Did you happen to notice all the escargot on my herbs too?? Grrrr.

Friday, June 11, 2010

I forgot to photograph all the cherry tomatoes turning red this week!! And I need to retake a new overall garden photo. Here are some close-up shots.

The onions are nearing their picking time. The white onions WAY out-performed the red onions. I don't know if it was soil conditions or not. They seem to be growing out of the ground. It doesn't seem to bother them.

I have a handful of Roma tomatoes coming along. For whatever reason, my big tomato plants seem stunted by the shading of sunflower plants. I hope they will survive the summer heat and take off in the fall.

We're eating sweet bell peppers regularly. This one is turning red. Today it was almost fully red.

I made jalapeno poppers one night. (Halves, filled with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon)Jalapenos are the bigger ones, and the skinny ones are serrano peppers. I believe they are even hotter.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Man!! We eat very good at this house inspite of my dietary restrictions. For those of you unaware, I suffer from fibromyalgia and the best cure I've found it by removing all dairy from my diet and most meats. I do eat fish and love a chicken wing from time to time. Occasionally, an egg will slip onto my salad and I devour it. Whenever I get into dairy, my joints hurt. I feel storms coming. I feel every little bit of swelling in my body.

Jack has high cholesterol and is unable to continue taking his cholesterol-lowering meds. So, we have become creative with our menus.

Like these are soy-ribs.

NOT........ ok, he slips up a bit more than me for Memorial Day weekend. But mostly red meat is OUT.

We grill a lot of vegetables and create our own dipping sauces to exclude milk or cheese.

Here's a close-up.

These were scrumptious!! My only warning is to be careful to rip them as you go. Eat in sections! Jack put an entire one in his mouth and it got caught in the esophagus. Can you say near-Heimleich moment?

We've also created a grilled squash that is to die for. People eat it like candy. Forget potato chips! You can't have just one.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

For the past 5 years, our street has had an annual street party for Memorial Day. Over the years, it grows bigger and bigger. There are more people there that I don't know than people that I do know. This year, it was toned down a bit, probably because the past couple years, the cops have shown up late into the evening. Things get out of control.

Each year, they print up funny shirts and so we buy them.

This is about the only way we can figure out who the neighbors are and who isn't.

One side of the street is more family-orientated with kid games. Each year, there is a bouncy house and a slip-n-slide. The other side is more for adults, including cornhole tossing. I'm awful at that.

I could not keep Jack out of it this year.

Not me!!!! This year, I sat mostly with my neighbor, Darlene and her boyfriend and their families. Darlene is so much prettier than this picture shows. She is the best neighbor. The kind where you can borrow anything. We have keys to each other's houses. We watch each other's dogs. We look out after each other, especially in lieu of her recent divorce. But, I'm very happy for her to have found a wonderful man.

But..... I digress....... We all bring tons of food and then eat late lunch and dinner there. Our other neighbors roasted two pigs for a full day and then made pull-pork sandwiches. Very delicious smelling!!

At night, the kids (and I) go in to watch movies or completely fall out from pure exhaustion of slipping-n-sliding all day. The other adults hang out by the fire pit 'til the wee hours of morning. Sometimes they have raffle games and karaoke, but there wasn't too much of that this year. They did have grocery kart races about midnight, which I saw when letting out the dogs.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I have been just awful about blogging. Not even sure if I have an 'audience' any more. I'm going to commit myself to several blogs. I have been taking pictures steadily but not always being diligent about downsizing & uploading to get them here.

So, here are pictures from when we went blueberry and strawberry picking in late May. We were able to do this U-pick Farm as a family. I was thrilled that Jack could come with us this year. The harvest season was rather quick, but we made it on day 2. We picked 20 lbs in 1.5 hrs.

While picking blueberries, we heard some ladies talk about the strawberry farm a block north. So, we headed there next and picked them. We had to work much harder at that farm, but it was worth it.

And 20 lbs of blueberries and 10 lbs of strawberries later...... I cleaned berries for 3 days and then this is what I did...

.... which turned into 7 jars of blueberry syrup (that I could not recook into jam) and a few jars of strawberry jam. And from there, we began topping everything that weekend with blueberry syrup. From pancakes